House Rules: President

Another card game popular among my friends, although less so than Prediction Whist. This relies more on luck, but because it's far more flexible to the number of players you can add more decks and have far more people playing.

Requirements

• A standard 52 playing card deck
• One Joker

Glossary

• President: The player currently in first place.
• Shithead: The player currently in last place.
• Vice (Vice President / Vice Shithead): The player in second / second last place, respectively.

  Note: With 3 players or less, there are no Vices.

Card Strength

Cards have a unique order:

1. The Joker is the strongest card
2. Next is 2s
3. Next is Aces
4. Next is Kings, and so on and so forth, down to 3s

Before the Round

• Deal the entire deck to all players present.
• If this is the first Round of the game, skip this section and go straight to During the Round.
• The President and the Shithead swap 2 cards. This is done by placing the two cards you want to give face down in front of you, and then swapping when both players have placed cards. This is to prevent whatever the opposite person is giving influencing what you give.
  • The Shithead must give their 2 empirically best cards.
  • The President can give whatever 2 cards they want.
• If the game has a Vice President and Vice Shithead, they repeat the steps as above, but instead only surrender 1 card to each other.

During the Round

• The President starts play. If this is the first round and there is no President, the person to the Dealer's left starts play.
• The person starting play can either play a single card, a pair / triple / quad of cards of the same value.
• The next person clockwise must then play the same number of cards, but of a higher value than played.

  Example: If Player A plays a Pair of 6s, Player B must play a Pair, and it must be a Pair of 7s or higher.

• If the person cannot play, they can instead Pass.
• If every player Passes except the one who last played, the current stack is burned and the player who last played can now start play as above.
• The order that people get rid of all of their cards determines their rank:
  • The First player is the President
  • The Second player is the Vice President
  • The Second to Last player is the Vice Shithead
  • The Last player is the Shithead

The Joker

The Joker is a special card. It has multiple special properties:

• If played as a single card, it will beat a 2.
• It can be used as a "wildcard" in a group, assuming the value of anything else in that group.

  Example: A King and a Joker is the same value as a pair of Kings.

• If it is used as any part of a player's final play (if they go out immediately after playing it), that player instantly becomes the Shithead.

Variations

• Fall from Grace
  • The player who was the President last round must go out first in the next round, or they will instantly become the Shithead.
• Revolution
  • If at any point a quad is played (using a Joker or not), the ranks of all of the cards (except the Joker) are reversed. 3 becomes the most powerful non-Joker card, and 2 becomes the weakest.

Automatic Shithead Rankings

Multiple circumstances can cause players to become the Shithead. Player rank is determined as (Higher means higher rank):

• Order players go out
• Fall from Grace
• Playing the Joker as the last play

Example:

1. Player A went out first, but used a Joker on the last hand
2. Player B went out second, but was the President and has fell from grace
3. Player C went out last

Rankings:

1. Player C is the President (despite going out last)
2. Player B
3. Player A is the Shithead (despite going out first)